Police report fentanyl death in Saskatoon

One person has died following what's believed to be a fentanyl overdose in Saskatoon.

Police reported that they responded to five separate calls involving overdoses over the weekend.

Three of those were thought to have been caused by fentanyl, including the one that reportedly led to a death.

Fentanyl is an opioid drug several times more potent than morphine. It's principal legal use is as a painkiller for cancer patients.

However, the drug has cropped up on streets across the country in recent years. It is often manufactured in clandestine labs and pressed into small green pills made to look like OxyContin, a painkiller that is no longer sold in Canada.

An amount of fentanyl about the size of two grains of salt can be enough to kill a healthy adult. This makes street pills especially dangerous, as even pills pressed in the same batch can contain widely varying amounts of the drug.

Police issued a warning Tuesday urging people not to take any drug not prescribed to them by a doctor and dispensed by a pharmacist.

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